Gypsy Girl (c.1626)

Hals, Frans (c.1582-1666)

Gypsy Girl (La Bohémienne)
c.1626
Oil on canvas, 58 x 52 cm
Musée du LouvreParis

The title of “Bohemian”, inseparable from the fame of the painting, was given to her upon her entry into the Louvre (cat. Reiset). She is definitely a courtesan given her provocative attire. Extremely rare, if not unique, representation in the work of Hals who had initially even sought more decency (less audacious neckline, visible in raking light, under the current layer of paint), which reveals an exceptional hesitation on the part of the artist. The inventory of the coll. Marigny (1781) clearly notes the particular character of this genre portrait by describing the model’s costume as Italian, as if it were a figure from a comedy or from a foreign world, in the manner of the Caravaggios. Dated around 1626, in the short, light-colored Utrechto-Caravaggesque period of Frans Hals. (Louvre)